School: Cromadh (B.)

Location:
Croom, Co. Limerick
Teacher:
Dáithí Ó Ceanntabhail
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0507, Page 069

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0507, Page 069

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    When I was a young lad at home I used often hear a story about a family in which there were three boys who lost their lives through the anxiety of their parents that their sons should have a knowledge of the English language.

    Miscellaneous.
    When I was a young lad at home, I used often hear a story about a family in which there were three boys who lost their lives through the anxiety of their parents, that their sons should have a knowledge of the English language. The father and mother had Irish only, but the eirige in airde was on them and they thought their family could not get on quickly enough if they did not possess a knowledge of the English tongue.
    As well as I remember it - which is indeed in detail, not very well at all - the parents were constantly impressing on the boys to lose no opportunity to learn the language, and the sons took their parents remarks so much to heart that when a band of robbers settled in a wood in the neighbourhood, the eldest son at the peril of his life, listened one night to the robber's conversation, which was in English. And as the fruit of his labour brought home with him the two words "We three". He kept repeating these words until he had them definitely fixed in his mind. The second boy, fired by his elder brother's success went and under similar conditions acquired the words "For the money" and made a point to retain them. The youngest brother not to be outdone followed on similar lines and got hold of the phrase "For the right and very good reason", and clung tenaciously to it.
    Now it so happened that the very gang who had been the inadvertent means of giving the boys their first lesson in English, committed
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Folktales index
    AT1697: “We Three; For Money.”
    Language
    English